Happiness in progress

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Month: May 2017

Saturday, May 13, 2017
I had planned to do a few things this morning, before we left, but it never ended up happening. Kyle knew that I knew that my shower was today, but nobody else knew. However, when we arrived at the location, I recognized a friend’s very recognizable car (it is both an unusual model and color). Then I saw a sawhorse labeled with my name and it said that it’s my parking spot. When I walked in, I was in shock. There were relatives and friends I didn’t expect to see. My dad came to visit from halfway across the U.S., for example.

My middle sister was clearly the organizer of the event and she did a great job! It was fun and entertaining, and I really don’t say that about things like baby showers. Everyone was really generous, making me feel bad that I hadn’t managed to give them more at their weddings and showers. Then came the moment of truth. My middle sister had convinced us to do a gender reveal. She wheeled out the cake, I cut into it, and saw the blue icing. I am going to have a boy! While I preferred a girl, I thought it was a boy. We also announced the name, which was my father’s first name. While I had never been particularly close with my father, I liked his name and it was a family name that was about to die out. I was later told that my dad teared up. My dad also gave us a check that I thought said $300, which was very generous. I hugged and thanked him. Later on, I discovered that it said $3,000! All of the big ticket items were bought for us and then some! We started to get concerned about where we were going to put everything, but I suppose that’s a great problem to have! There were also a number of sentimental presents where people made things for us.

As we drove away, we were both in silent shock and gratitude. We stopped at a big box store to pick up a few things we needed with some of the gift money we were given. I got some clothes and underwear for our hospital bag. Kyle got a cute father’s day shirt that he’s going to put in his hospital bag. When we got home, we talked for a little while about the day and everyone’s generosity and went to bed.

Sunday, May 14, 2017
I woke up rather early this morning. I got up, read a chapter of my Childbirth Without Fear book, and fell back asleep on the couch. I woke up a few hours later, made breakfast, and went back to sleep. I had a difficult time staying awake, in general today. To be fair, this was the first day I had where I didn’t have to be anywhere or do anything in over a month. I guess my body just needed its rest.

Of course, when it came time to actually go to sleep for the night, I had a lot of difficulty getting to sleep. I think it was a little after midnight when I finally managed to nod off.

Monday, May 15, 2017I awoke very tired after only four hours of sleep. I uncharacteristically felt tired on my morning commute and struggled with staying awake. I have a sore throat as well, which was rather uncomfortable.

My day was rather normal. Nothing of interest happened at work, excepting the shower my coworkers were having for me after school. They had taken up a collection and were very generous! When I got home, Kyle and I looked at everything that was left on our registry that we thought we needed and bought it! It felt really good to have everything that we wanted/thought we needed for the baby when he comes!

Tuesday, May 16, 2017I was able to sleep in a little today because we had a conference day. Unfortunately, my body decided it wanted to sleep in more. I showed up late. Thankfully, nobody noticed. I sat a little apart on the end in the back. I couldn’t get comfortable. Sitting was uncomfortable. So was standing. Then once an hour or so I had to use the restroom. I was glad when it was over!

I fought sleep on the drive home. When I got there, I went right to sleep. I wonder if I’m getting sick or if I just need more sleep again for the baby to develop. Even though I woke up for a little while, I was really out of it. I went to bed for the night not long afterwards.

Wednesday, May 17, 2017
I had a relatively easy day at work today. Wednesdays are usually relatively easy for me. For some reason, it seemed more difficult than usual. I fought sleep on the way home and slept a lot when I got home. I think I’m getting sick because my sore throat made a reappearance today.

Thursday, May 18, 2017Today was a rough day at work. It became apparent that my cold was getting worse. I couldn’t stand for long because I became too light-headed. My voice started cracking and got lower than usual. By the time I went home, all I wanted to do was sleep again. At least tomorrow is Friday.

Friday, May 19, 2017
I don’t think I mentioned this before, but my belly started feeling bigger and heavier all week. I’m not sure if it’s because I know that we’re going to have a boy or I’m just tired and worn out from being sick and pregnant, but I feel this overwhelming urge to have this pregnancy be over so I can meet our baby. It probably doesn’t help that when he has strong movements that an observer can actually see my belly bulge out a little in that spot!

I also had several coworkers tell me that they knew it was a boy. The reasons they cited were everything from the fact that I was carrying heavy to the fact that my face was relatively unchanged to the fact that my belly wasn’t perfectly rounded. My belly has never been perfectly rounded. It’s always been an odd shape, even when I was thin and fit, so I expected that it would remain the same in pregnancy. I always admired flat bellies and round bellies, but I have never had either. Now that I’m pregnant, I don’t mind so much, so long as my belly adequately carries our little one until he’s healthy and ready to arrive. But I wish that time would come already!

Saturday, May 6, 2017We woke up early and drove to visit Zak and Danielle. We knew that this was going to be our last big trip before the baby came. We may attempt a trip or two that’s around 2 hours, but there’s no way I’m going to be able to handle another 5+ hour trip until after the baby comes. They have a two and a half year old. It was like looking into the future to see what we could expect. They’re in the process of potty training him. They also catered to what he would eat more than I would like to. Actually, they spent a lot of time arguing over what was or was not okay for their kid. They really didn’t seem to happy together and it looked like they had differing opinions about child-rearing. I am grateful that even though Kyle and I have not been together for very long before this happened that we really do seem to be on the same page. We’re both happy to be starting a family together and both very happy about my pregnancy. I really can’t complain. In fact, I really can’t see how I could have done any better! I hope things continue to be as good for us as they have been!

We decided to go out to see a movie and invited Zak and Danielle. Neither wanted to leave the other with the baby, which was understandable. They both told us to enjoy the movie while we could, implying that it would be a long time before we could enjoy one after the baby arrives. Maybe they’re right. It just seemed like an odd thing to say.

Sunday, May 7, 2017
I spent the majority of the day driving. It was nice to see Zak and Danielle, but I was ready to leave. By the time we got home, we really didn’t have much energy to do anything. I did manage to put together our rocking chair and sat in it for a little while before I went to bed.

Monday, May 8, 2017
I’m not sure what it is, but I really have been wanting to find out the sex of the baby. Maybe it’s just that I’ve been feeling constant movement, but I still don’t really feel connected to it. I feel like using the correct pronoun and a name would help. We picked out names for both sexes, but I don’t want to use one only to find out that it’s the other. For a number of weeks at the beginning I was using male pronouns, but was unsure if it was because that’s the sex of the baby or if it was just the typical go-to pronoun that our society uses when the sex of something is uncertain. I would like a girl, but that’s just because that’s what I understand. Both boys and girls (assuming that they’re gender-typical) come with their own types of challenges. Either way, it’ll be a baby and I’ll be happy no matter what it is!

Tuesday, May 9, 2017
Today the clothes I work made it obvious to the parents that I was pregnant. I had arrival duty. It mostly consisted of watching the kids get off the busses and making sure that none of the parents came into the school with their child. When the parents saw me, many of them looked at my belly and asked when my last day of school would be. I told them that I would be there until the end. They asked me, several, at different times if I was going to last that long. I’m not due until the end of July, so this question took me aback. After the first few, I just started telling people I guessed I was carrying really heavy and left it at that. I even had a little girl ask me, “Are there two babies in there?”

It made me a little self-conscious, but after thinking about it, I supposed that being visibly pregnant wasn’t a bad thing. Work went fine today with nothing out of the ordinary occurring.

Kyle and I went to the grocery store after work. We were in an aisle and one lady told me how beautiful I looked. Assuming she was talking to someone else, I looked around and realized we were the only ones in the aisle. So I thanked her belatedly for her compliment. She asked when I was due. I told her. She asked if I had twins. I said no. That’s when she said she didn’t believe me. I started to get annoyed because apparently my pregnancy allows strangers to comment on my body. No doubt if I was carrying lightly, I’d be getting comments too. Well, for the most part, I like being pregnant, but I’m really starting to wish I knew what sex we’re going to be having. I feel that using gender neutral terms like “it”, “baby”, and “the kid” are starting to get old and are preventing me from really forming a connection. Plus it would help if I could actually call “the thing” by his or her real name! Hopefully I’ll find out soon!

Wednesday, May 10, 2017
Today was supposed to be an easy day, but it didn’t feel that way. I woke up so late that I knew I would arrive late to work. I sent an e-mail and blamed the traffic. I had to be at school about a half hour before my first class started anyway.

I guess the clothes I wore today made me look more pregnant than usual. I had thought that the kids in my dance production would have spread the word around the school that I was pregnant, but not every class already knew. I found myself explaining it a lot in classes today, which was fine.

Kyle wanted me to drive him to a hike after I got out of work, but he just couldn’t find the things he needed for it in time. In truth, I was relieved. I was too tired to put forth the added energy that I knew I’d need if I were going to be sociable with people. Also, people tend to go out afterwards, so I knew that we wouldn’t get home in time for me to get a full 8 hours of sleep. Instead, we just hung out, cuddled, and watched a movie together. Sometimes those are the nicest nights!

Thursday, May 11, 2017
I awoke tired again today. It seems like I’m never going to catch up on sleep! It was nice to be able to go home after work today. I had plans to clean out my car, but that didn’t happen. My body must just be needing to rest because I went to sleep when I got home. Either the baby is going through a growth spurt or I am. My upper belly right under my breasts has been sore and I feel gravity pulling on my lower belly as well. I’ve noticed that such things will bother me for a few days or a week at the most. Then my body gets used to the change and I’m fine. I just need to suck it up and deal with it for a few days and I’ll be fine!

Friday, May 12, 2017I was extremely exhausted today. I needed to buy some caffeinated soda just to be aware enough on the drive to work. I dragged myself through the day, happy when it was over. I had plans to get a few things done when I got home, but I just didn’t have the mental or physical energy. I fell asleep when I got home and woke up long enough to pick Kyle up from work.

When he got home, he was talking about cleaning up the apartment to invite my sisters over after the shower. I asked if that meant the shower was this weekend. He seemed annoyed to have given it away. I told him that I had suspected it for a long time since he was talking about doing something nice for my mom for Mother’s Day without wanting help or input from me. He felt a bit better and was happy to not have to hide it from me anymore. I’m very much looking forward to tomorrow so we can finally find out the sex of the baby! It has been driving me crazy all week, so I guess it’s now time to know!

Week 28 – I tried to catch up on sleep this week, but failed. I spent most of the time just trying to catch up on everything that I had put off last week with all of the rehearsals. I hope to catch up on sleep soon. I’ve been tired a lot, but at least the stress component is gone! I have been busy, but hopefully there is an end in sight!

I also seem to be obviously pregnant to even the casual observer now. I have had several parents ask me about my pregnancy. Several asked if I was going to have twins. Several commented about how it was going to be a big baby. I had a few confidently tell me I wasn’t going to last until the end of the school year. I finally got in the habit of telling people I was just carrying big before the comments started as I was starting to lose my patience. Why does everyone feel the need to comment on the size of my belly!?

Saturday, April 22, 2017I felt like I really haven’t had bunch of a spring break at all. I took today and finished reading both of the pregnancy books I had. They were the type that went through week by week, month by month, and gave an idea of what to expect and some ways to deal with common issues. They ended with labor, what could be expected, and some common pregnancy medical issues — everything from a good diet to people who already had existing medical conditions. It was informative, but I was happy to be done. It took me longer than I expected, but I finished them by the end of the night. It was nice to just lay around all day and do something similar to relaxing.

Sunday, April 23, 2017
I slept in today. Even after I woke up, I really just took it easy all morning. I had to go in to work because I had my dance performance coming up next week and I had to set up the sound and lighting equipment. My school makes such a big deal about these things. The lighting board somehow got un-programed. Kyle and I stayed late trying to figure out how to program it. I finally got too tired and just gave up for the night. I got home and to sleep too late.

Monday, April 24, 2017
I was a little out of it today. I was really stressed with the number of things I had to do. I showed some lengthy documentaries in my older classes and assigned a report on them. They should take at least a few classes worth of watching to finish them. I got a lot of stuff done during those classes. I have rehearsals all week for my dance production. Today after the rehearsal, Kyle came and managed to program the lighting board. We still left there too late for a good night’s sleep again.

Tuesday, April 25, 2017It was difficult to get up this morning. I barely made it to work on time. I struggled to stay awake at work. My back was also incredibly sore after rehearsal, even though I didn’t do any dancing, I just watched and organized the students as to when to go on and how. After the rehearsal was over, I had to meet with the stage crew. When that meeting was over, my principal had stayed late to talk to me. By the time I left, I was barely able to leave in time to get a full night’s sleep. And of course, when I got home, Kyle had dinner waiting for me. He is so sweet and supportive!

Wednesday-FridayI was tired, stressed, and got very little sleep. I wasn’t particularly worried about the dance production. I was plagued by vivid dreams that were unsettling. I was looking forward to getting this over so I could sleep. I forced myself to stand longer and be more active than my body wanted to be and I could feel it taking its toll.

SaturdayOf course I overbooked myself for today. I went somewhere else first in order to help out a friend. Then I had my dance production. It was hailed as the best yet and I was praised for how calm I kept throughout the whole thing. Nobody realized that I wasn’t calm, I was just sleep-deprived!

Saturday, April 15, 2017
It was nice to be able to sleep in today, even though I didn’t sleep particularly late. Everyone at Kyle’s mother’s house is a night owl, so I enjoyed a nice quiet couple of hours while I finished my latest knitting project. When everyone got up, Kyle and I went to get his hair cut, ate lunch out, and bought some food to make dinner for his family.

We made a dinner that was a little too filling. Then I forced myself to stay awake so I could hang out with Kyle and his mom and get to know her better. The two of them drank and I forced myself to stay awake and act sociable. Around midnight, I was too exhausted and went to bed. I asked Kyle to take my shoes off and he noticed that one of my feet was blue. It was cold, all the way up to my calf. He rubbed it until color and warmth came back into it. He said it was normal, but when I googled it later, I couldn’t find anything other than a mention of it on a few message boards. And on the message boards, it always was accompanied by swelling. Well, I have a doctor’s appointment on Tuesday, so I’ll ask about it then!

Sunday, April 16, 2017
I awoke late and groggy. We had a breakfast brunch with Kyle’s parents, aunt, and cousin. I enjoyed myself, but I was feeling very off, so I ended up spending most of the time they were there laying on the couch and contributing to the conversation as best as I could.

After they left, Kyle and I decided to take a nap. I must have needed it more than I thought, because I didn’t even hear Kyle’s mom wake us up the first time for Easter dinner. The second time, she managed to break through my muddled sleep. I got up and ate with them, but we were very groggy.

Afterwards, we went to visit Zak and Danielle and two of Kyle’s friends. We stayed later than I would have liked, but it was good getting to see and spend time with friends!

Monday, April 17, 2017
I had a dream last night. I dreamed that I was visiting my dad in Florida. We were swimming, but all of a sudden the temperature dropped and the wind picked up. I looked out and you could see storm clouds on the horizon. My step-mom mentioned the possibility of rain, but my dad and her got into a debate about it. By the time we were on the beach picking up our stuff, the first drops had begun to fall. We quickly ran off of the beach onto a raised concrete veranda of a nearby condo. We watched as the water rose and quickly turned into gigantic waves, taking out houses and washing them away as we watched. The waves got higher and higher and started making their way to the veranda we were standing on. I felt the concrete of the building move under our feet and suggested we go further inland.

The next part of the dream was like something out of an action movie. We ran in the lee of the condo where the water had not yet penetrated much, but the other side had a small river running. There was a partially submerged house, so I ran and jumped on the roof. I ran from roof to roof until we got to a place with dry pavement. We continued to run until we thought we were safe enough inland. We found another sturdily build condominium and ran up the stairs until we got about a third of the way up. We picked a random door and pounded on it, asking for help and refuge. The lady who lived there was kind and let us in. She made us food. We were sitting around the table with some other refugees when I felt a slight lurch in the building that suggested that the water caught up with us. I looked out of the window and saw that the top section of the building was about to fall off. I dove out of the window into the water. I was lucky to miss the debris falling on top of me. I swam around to the other side (that’s where the current was taking me anyway) and saw the section of the building containing my dad and step-mom splash into the water. I could see the navy training my dad had hadn’t left him. He quickly emerged from the water and quickly went back in for my step-mom.

We ran some more until I couldn’t breathe anymore. Then we walked for a while so I could catch my breath. Finally, we came upon an apartment building. There was nobody home, so my dad broke into an apartment. A few other refugees followed us. We again sat down to some food when I realized that the water had yet again found us. I told my dad that I just couldn’t run forever. I decided to get to a dry section of land where I could call a cab and go to the airport.

Because I flew home a day earlier than I had intended and my phone’s charger had been left there, I had no way to contact Kyle to let him know that I was coming home. I also knew that he had had a large party for all of our hiking friends the week before. So now Tim, my gaslighting ex-husband, knew I was living there again and he had a key. I didn’t want to go home to those circumstances. I stopped by Zak and Danielle’s house, since they’re the kind of people who would welcome me no matter what time I stopped by. However, their house was already full with guests. I had to either sleep on a giant bean bag or the floor. I tried, but couldn’t sleep. I chatted with Danielle for a little bit, trying to get tired. It turned out that Tim had moved nearby again. He had also posted a picture to Facebook with all of my sex toys that he found while he was at my house for that party. I hadn’t seen it because I had blocked him. I decided sleep wasn’t going to happen, so Zak drove me to my house. He parked down the street and checked the parking. There were a number of cars there, but they could have belonged to the frat house next door.

We had just gone in the basement entrance, to start at the bottom and work our way up in our search for Tim. There were two girls down there drinking. Kyle walked downstairs completely naked with a dog on a leash. He looked at me, completely startled to see me, and thanked the girls for their use of the dog. I couldn’t imagine why he would be completely naked and wondered if he had cheated on me while I was gone.

That was the end of the dream. I woke up feeling very emotional and rather suspicious of his fidelity. I told him about the dream and he commented on the weirdness of my dreams. I was in a bit of a dream-induced daze for the entire lengthy drive home. As per the instructions of the internet, I stopped and got out and walked every hour. It added an extra hour or two to my lengthy trip.

When we got home, my legs, feet, and ankles felt funny, so I took a bath. Our bathtub isn’t huge, so I was really only able to fit my legs in below the water line. When I got out, my thighs felt weirder, kind of tingly. I asked Kyle and he said that my legs were swollen all the way up to my thighs. He immediately made me lay down and raised my legs with pillows. The problem was it hurt to lay on my back (and I believe I’m not supposed to at this point anyway. I laid on my side and tried to raise my feet as high above my head as possible.

Tuesday, April 18, 2017We went to my doctor’s appointment. We had another gynecologist today. We had tried to schedule appointments with all of them to ensure that we’d get to know all of the ones in the group before the birth. We will be getting whoever is on call, so I wanted to at least know each of them a little bit ahead of time. I liked this one. I asked about the swelling and blue foot. She said if it’s not a consistent problem, then we shouldn’t worry about it. Everything was normal, including my blood pressure, urine, etc. She mentioned that my free T4 was low (which was a thyroid number gotten at my last lab).

Afterwards, he had work and I just relaxed and watched movies for a little while. I didn’t feel like I had the energy to do anything. I also figured with everything that had been going on, I should just take it easy.

Wednesday, April 19, 2017
I had an interview in the morning for another art teaching job. It’s just too expensive where we live right now to live off of one income with a baby. I thought it went well. When I got home in the evening, I was asked to return for a second interview on Friday. I would be teaching an art class in front of the interview committee. This sort of thing is not uncommon in teaching, but I’ve never had the pleasure of doing it. It will be tough to get together a good lesson plan with all of the criteria that they wanted to see in my lesson with less than two days in advance. I will do my best, of course.

Thursday, April 20, 2017
I spent the day at work. I had to come in to do some special work for the principal. I tried to come up with a good lesson plan when I was free to think about it, but I really came up with nothing. When I went to bed, I started to get worried. I really couldn’t come up with anything good. There were plenty of things I could teach and plenty of go-to lessons. The problem was they asked for a lot of specific things that they wanted included in the lesson. The one thing that really pissed me off was that they wanted Common Core stuff included in the lesson. There is no Common Core for art. So basically all they see my subject as is a supplement to the fucking “core” subjects. Like art isn’t important enough on its own. Unfortunately, this is way too common these days. I have a BS stock answer that I give when they ask how I implement Common Core in my classroom. However, I don’t go out of my way to teach other subjects. That’s the other teachers’ job.

Friday, April 21, 2017I had my second interview today. I taught a half hour lesson. I looked at the reaction of the interview committee at the end, but none of their faces were terribly easy to read. I thought it went really well. I was told that I would be called sometime next week to be informed if I got the job or not. I’m feeling pretty optimistic, though!